“Let us help, Rigo. Frank and Rudy are on the body run your guys gave us, but they’ll be back tomorrow . . . hell, it is tomorrow. They’ll be back this afternoon and I’ll keep them on hand. Hey, man, I want those bastards as much as you do. It was my shipment and Alberto was my blood and bone, too. Just give the word and we’re on the way.”
“I know it, Charlie. I’ll be in touch as soon as Mateo has something.”
His name’s Donasio Corona and he was in Alberto’s crew, Mateo says. Twenty-six years old. Came to us three years ago after doing two and a half at Veracruz state for robbery. We put him on various small duties the first couple of years—runner, street lookout, driver—some of those jobs for Alberto, which is how they got to know each other. Last year one of Alberto’s crewmen got killed in a bar fight and he took Corona on in his place. Anyway, he’s our guy. No doubt about it.
It is nearing dawn. Mateo arrived at Rodrigo’s estate in the city’s Chapultepec district a short while ago. They’re taking coffee in the softly lit courtyard gazebo, well distanced from the house and all servants’ ears.
I’m impressed you ran him down so fast, Rodrigo says.
All it takes is talking to the right person, Mateo says, but you never know who the right person is till you talk to him. I been going around all night to see those of our people who know about Boca Larga, asking them all the same question and doing a lot of tap dancing to avoid telling any of them about the hijack. I think it’s best we don’t let word of it get out just now. Might put the guys who did it on sharper guard.
I agree. So who was the right person to talk to?
Ignacio Verdes, another of our crew chiefs. He said it was odd I should ask if he’d heard or seen anything out of the ordinary about any of the guys in the transport crews. Said Alberto called him yesterday morning before he left on the Boca Larga run and asked if he could borrow a man. One of his guys, Donasio Corona, had called him before sunup saying he was sick as hell, shitting and puking since three in the morning, probably because of some bad menudo he had for supper. Alberto told him to see the company doctor as soon as the office opened, then called Ignacio, who let him have Neto Valles, one of his best men. Like some of the others I talked to, Ignacio was curious about why I was asking, and I told him I couldn’t say at this time. He’s going to be awful damn pissed about losing Valles.
And Donasio Corona has of course disappeared, Rodrigo says.
Wasn’t at home. Didn’t go see the doctor. Isn’t in any hospital or jail. I sent his picture and prints to our network guys with connections to the passport office and access twenty-four seven, and they reported that the prints aren’t in the files, so he’s never been issued a passport under any name. I ordered our border crews to post lookouts with all the wetback smugglers in case he should try crossing with one of them. On the off chance he’s still in town, I have people keeping watch on all the joints where he’s known to hang out. My guess is he got out of Mexico City but will stay in the country.
And Corona knows the Larga run pretty good?
The whole crew did. Alberto’s been collecting all of Charlie’s deliveries there for about two years steady now and mostly with the same guys the whole time, except for Corona just the past year. They were a good crew and he had no reason to mistrust any of them. They knew that guns are the only cargo ever delivered there, and the load’s usually American military rifles and pistols and that every so often it includes machine guns, sometimes foreign subs. Since Corona’s been with the crew, and not counting last night’s pickup, they’ve made seven collections at Boca Larga. That’s enough for him to have learned that run real good. He knew the exact distance from the junction road exit to the trail entry, which is impossible to spot at night unless you know just where to look. He knew the best spot to hit the crew on its way out. He knew there’s no room on the trail to hide a vehicle and that there’s only one spot just wide enough to make a U-turn without getting stuck. He knew everything you’d need to know for a hijack plan, and he laid it on somebody looking for weapons. And those motherfuckers took out our guys and stole our goods.
What’s your read on them? Rodrigo asks.
I figure a young bunch. They’re very good and they’re full of themselves. Probably looking to make their mark in weapons retailing but not flush enough yet to invest in top-grade guns. But even if they could afford a load like this one, they might be the kind who think stolen fruit is sweeter than bought fruit. A lot more satisfying to rip a load than buy it. Not a very smart outlook as a long-term business practice, but not uncommon in young guys with big balls. You’re not so old yet you can’t remember what that kind of cockiness is like.
I’m not so old yet I can’t still kick your ass. And Corona?
Hell, he’s just a dumb shit who thinks whatever they paid him was worth it. The big question is who they are, but the pressing question is where he is. I figure hiding out with a relative, a pal, a woman, somebody. Thinking to hole up till things blow over. It’s what all the stupid ones do. Don’t understand some things never blow over.
So what are we doing? Rodrigo says.
I’ve alerted our intelligence people. Gave them the full jacket on him. They’ve put spiders out everywhere. We’ll find him.
Has to be fast, brother.
I know, Mateo says.
Rodrigo calls Charlie Fortune to relay what he’s learned.
It’s a pleasant Saturday afternoon on the Gulf. We’re bearing south along the Texas coast, about a mile and a half off Padre Island. The sky is bright and nearly cloudless. On the distant eastern horizon a freighter is trailing a thin plume of dark smoke. There’s no other vessel in view except a small boat a quarter mile ahead of us and off to starboard.
My brother, Frank, and I are on the bridge of the Salty Girl, a thirty-five-foot customized sportfisher belonging to one of our uncles, Harry Morgan Wolfe, who normally uses it for fishing charters, but it sometimes serves other purposes as well. Frank’s at the wheel and I’m astraddle the swivel stool beside him.
Out on the foredeck, Rayo Luna and Jessie Juliet are lying side by side on their tummies, sunning their exquisite butts in string bikinis and talking about God knows what. Thick as thieves, those two—Rayo of the caramel skin and short black shag, Jessie a tanned strawberry blonde, her long hair loosely knotted in a bunch at the back of her head. They know we’re enjoying the view and that our pleasure isn’t hindered a bit by the fact they’re our cousins. Like Frank and me, Jessie is part of our family’s Texas side and is only a couple of branches removed from us. Rayo’s from the Mexico City half of the family, which originated from the same paternal root and is also surnamed Wolfe, but it places her further out from us on the genealogical tree. For the fun of it we sometimes refer to the two sides of the family in unison as the House of Wolfe. Over the generations, the Mexican Wolfes acquired a touch of mestizo strain through marriage, and most of them have the same light brown complexion and black hair as Rayo. In contrast, we on the Texas side of the house largely reflect the original family’s Anglo-Irish origin, almost all of us fair-haired and light-skinned. Frank and I are the only American Wolfes with a wee drop of mestizo blood, gained by way of a grandaunt whose father was Rodolfo Fierro, Pancho Villa’s right-hand man, and for whom I am first-named and Frank middle-named. For whatever reason, though, Frank tans more readily and darkly than I do, and given his black hair and bandido mustache, when nut-brown in high summer he bears a strong likeness to the Fierro we’ve seen in historical photos. The rest of the Texas clan could be taken for typical natives anywhere in Western Europe.
Rayo